Charmed Waffles and Beyond
by imaginary iby
Summary: Hopefully, a little break from the sadness that's looming over us.  Just a look at the morning rituals of Remus and Tonks.  A oneshot and a drabble.  My first Harry Potter story, so any help with characterization is appreciated.


Just an assortment of little fics. One fic and one drabble, to be precise.

I'm just testing the waters, so bear with me as I search around for the right tone and characterization. First Harry Potter fic!

- - - -

Drying his hair off with his towel, Lupin ambled out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, skirting around the black boots that lay abandoned in the middle of the floor without conscious thought. He knew they would be there. They always were.

_That's their home, Remus!_

_Just like your socks seem to feel most comfortable in the oven and your dresses appear to have an attachment to the windowsill?_

In truth, he didn't mind shoes in the middle of the room. They were just another reminder that he had someone else around the house and the joy that came from that more than compensated for a little mess.

It wasn't until he looked up that he realized the woman in his thoughts was also in his room. Their room.

She hadn't noticed him, her back to the adjoining door that he'd just stepped through. She was bent over slightly, inspecting something in her hands.

Keeping quiet, he cast a little mirror charm, turning a tiny patch of the wall opposite into a reflective surface.

It was one of his jackets. Well, one of three in any case. Brown, tweed and patched and frayed. She was staring at the material curiously, fingering it gently.

"Something the matter?"

She jumped three feet in the air, flinging the jacket aside as she span to face him.

"Remus! You git, you scared me."

He smiled warmly at her and deposited his towel on the bed, beside his jacket that had landed on the duvet. Turning it the right way in, he rounded the bed and handed it back to her.

Taking it from him guiltily, she turned on one foot to face the wardrobe and put in back on its hanger.

"I was just thinking about your clothes." At his enquiring eyebrow, she continued. "It's a funny material, tweed. Very…professory."

"Well, I am a professor."

She twitched her nose to the left, deep in thought. "You'd never catch me in tweed. But then again, I'd probably explode at the sight of you in silk or leather or spandex."

He smiled, slightly nervously at the thought of spandex. _No, really Sirius, I'm fine with my cardigan. Back Sirius, back!_

"You're an odd one, Nymphadora Tonks.

"Oh, I know." She was in another world, deep in thought. "I like you in tweed and woolly jumpers. I really like you in everything I'd never think of wearing. Isn't that funny?"

Lupin thought it was just another thing to add to the Why Does She Love Me Again? List, but he'd long since decided to ignore those worries.

"I think I like them, because they're you. They're not me, but they're you and that makes me feel…' she curled her fingers around the limp sleeve in the wardrobe, "happy. On the surface they're depressing and patched, but really, they're familiar and warm."

As if the world was coming back to her, she glanced up at him sharply. "Sorry, I haven't had any breakfast yet and you know how that messes with my mind."

He shrugged into a dark grey shirt, tugged a dark blue woolly jumper over it and then held his arm out to her.

"To the kitchen?"

She smiled and laughed happily, the sound of it waking up the old house. A simple fact which warmed him more than he could say. She raised her arm and pointed out the window. "And beyond!"

- - - -

Beyond, as it happened, was nothing more that their front steps but it was enough for both of them. When the weather permitted, Tonks liked to eat outside and watch the passers by before they had to leave for work. There was just enough space to accommodate two bodies and two cups of tea by their feet. Plates in laps they chatted happily, Tonks evaluating the Bongo Banshees' latest album song by song.

He'd been listening to her and watching the little cat from the house opposite stalk a Robin. When the Robin got its wits about it and flew away, the cat sidled off grumpily.

The performance over, he turned to Tonks. She looked incredibly beautiful. Her hair was long and bright purple, half of it clasped in a big emerald green clip that clashed dreadfully and yet made her all the more adorable. She'd wanted waffles, and a smidgeon of honey sat on the corner of her lip. Sticky finger food really wasn't her specialty, and he'd stuck to toast, but who was he to deny her?

He looked down at her plate and nearly fell off the steps in shock. She'd built an intricately detailed and architecturally sound waffle house with a hinged door and a water feature that honey cascaded through.

"You charmed your waffles?"

He wasn't at all surprised. It was just the sort of odd yet endearing thing she'd do.

She smiled, without a trace of embarrassment. Every time she did something just for fun with no fear of what people thought, he felt the years slip from him also. "They were so good it seemed a shame to eat them. Something…" she tutted, "is missing though." She span the plate on her lap so as to see it from all angles. "What do you think?"

He looked up at their own front garden and it hit him instantly. Their letterbox (for Tonks liked to sign them up for Muggle catalogues), an acoustic guitar that stood on its own headstock featured prominently at by the gate. Tonks had taken a liking to it in the shop and with the nod from the appropriate authorities, had charmed it to play the Weird Sisters when something fun arrived and wail miserably when the bills came in. Audible only to magical ears, of course.

"It needs a letterbox, Dora."

He picked up a piece of crust (mature as people thought him, he'd never quite developed a liking for his crusts) transfigured them with a whistle and together they watched as the crumbs became a letterbox.

Levitating the addition to her plate, he settled it proudly beside the water feature.

- - - -

- - - -

The minute he shook off the daze of his apparition, Remus noticed Tonks propped up against the Weasley's gate. "I've been banished. Molly thinks it's time her crockery and I saw other people."

Fighting down the irrational impulse to pop off and give Molly a piece of his mind for banishing Tonks, Remus adjusted his cloak and sat down beside her. "I don't want you consorting with that much floral anyway. Dreadful patterns." He nudged her shoulder playfully. "Budge up, you can't take up all the good fence."

Shifting slightly, so as to allow him part of the large post behind her back, she smiled.

He watched her surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye , looking for signs of sincerity in the smile. He was pleased to find them there. Every now and then, Tonks let her clumsiness get her down, but today was not one of those days.

The sun was warm and bright, and as the minutes ticked over he could feel it start to creep underneath his collar and sleeves.

Bracing his hand on the fence behind him, Lupin pushed himself up. Turning to her, he held his hand out. "Come on, you can help me make a cup of tea. Molly'll let you in her kitchen if I keep an eye on you."

Tonks huffed indignantly, but took his hand all the same. "I do not need chaperoning. Especially since you're the boy I'm going to end up kissing in the broom closet anyway."

- - - -

I'm not too sure what I think. Does it feel very Harry Pottery? I'd love to see how you feel!


End file.
